Chapter 34: Jungling Turned Up Something Good! (4.2K)

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Noon.

Li Ye stood atop the lookout tower, gazing into the distance.

“I never expected to reach the central region so soon,” he murmured.

As they drew nearer, Li Ye gradually gained a clearer view of the city ruins ahead.

It was unmistakably a scene from the apocalypse.

Buildings had collapsed, while weeds and vines grew thickly over their mottled walls. Rusting abandoned vehicles lay scattered along the streets. In the distance, the skeletons of skyscrapers still stood, though much of their outer shells had fallen away. Steel beams thrust toward the sky from the concrete wreckage, resembling the ribs of dead beasts.

The city ruins stretched over an enormous area, reaching nearly beyond sight from left to right.

Judging by Li Ye’s estimate, the city had once been home to roughly a million people.

He could not help rubbing his hands together in excitement.

Within the city ruins, he could send people to collect the reinforcing bars embedded in the concrete, as well as metal pots, bowls, old appliances, and other scrap. All of it could be fed into the furnace aboard the Tomorrow and smelted back into iron ore.

Unfortunately, the Tomorrow’s mechanical arms were currently only standard-grade. Their efficiency at breaking through concrete was poor, while dismantling everything by hand would be even more troublesome.

The furniture inside the city’s buildings could also be dismantled and converted into wood.

“Better to salvage as much as possible,” he thought.

Compared with reinforcing bars, the city’s most abundant resource was concrete.

The problem was that once concrete had hardened, it could no longer be dismantled and reused.

Li Ye planned to spend roughly a week repairing the city ruins while gathering as many resources as possible.

More importantly, however, he was concerned about the situation here.

This was the central region of the Wasteland Zone. Every survivor, convoy, and mobile city would pass through this place.

Since these were city ruins containing large quantities of supplies, many factions would naturally flock here.

How many survivors were there? How many survival convoys? How many mobile cities? Were there zombie hordes, monsters, or even wilderness bosses?

Li Ye marked each question with a giant question mark in his mind.

As a level-one city, the Tomorrow could travel along the city’s main roads, but it would occupy every lane. It would also scrape against nearby buildings from time to time.

The suburban outskirts around the city ruins were manageable. Few houses had been built there, and the roads were relatively broad. The city center, however, would be another matter entirely.

Several hours remained before the next intelligence update, and Li Ye had no intention of sitting idle. He selected a relatively suitable position on the outskirts and had the Tomorrow berth there.

He then issued a series of orders.

Helmsman Tang Fang and A-Bai were to stand by in the cockpit. Lookout Lin Xia was responsible for keeping watch, while gunner Ning Wen was to remain beside the Frost Cannon.

Ning Wen had also been extremely busy recently.

The main reason was that he had to train the combat personnel to operate the cannons. After all, he was only one man and could not operate so many cannons at once.

Strictly speaking, he was less a gunner than the captain of the artillery team.

Old Zhou divided the combat personnel into two groups. One group stood by beside the standard cannons and heavy machine guns, while the other remained on ground security duty.

Fifteen residents responsible for gathering resources outside the city boarded the lift platform and descended to the ground to begin their work. Over the next few hours, they would collect reinforcing bars from the concrete, salvage abandoned vehicles, enter buildings to search for old appliances, and gather all kinds of metal goods.

Mechanic Lin Wu led his assistants and four logistical workers in continuing repairs on the Tomorrow.

After the battle at the Gloss Mine, many parts of the Tomorrow had been damaged. Since Roland Fortress was no longer available as a safe harbor, the Tomorrow could only conduct repairs while traveling through the wilderness.

Groups of people gradually took their positions and began attending to their respective duties.

With a loud crash, the Tomorrow’s mechanical arm broke through part of a building. It struck again, shattering most of the concrete and exposing the reinforcing bars inside.

Two nearby residents stepped forward and used the mining picks they carried to break apart the remaining concrete, collecting the exposed bars and placing them on the lift platform.

On the other side of the street, three or four residents cautiously slipped into a building and began gathering usable metal.

Two combat personnel escorted them, carrying Falcon assault rifles. A squad of combat personnel patrolled the street, one of them carrying a Gale rocket launcher.

Aboard the Tomorrow, the standard cannons, heavy machine guns, and Frost Cannon were all in position. Should anything happen, they would immediately provide fire support.

The most valuable items were the abandoned vehicles lining the streets, whose bodies contained considerable amounts of metal. Yet there was only a single abandoned vehicle on the entire street.

That was hardly surprising. Over the years, countless mobile cities had visited this place. They naturally understood that abandoned vehicles were the most valuable resources and would have collected them first.

The reinforcing bars, abandoned vehicles, and metal goods gathered from the buildings could all be returned to the furnace aboard the mobile city and smelted into iron ore.

After a dozen minutes, movement came from the distance.

A series of violent rumbles echoed through the ruins.

The people working in the street stopped what they were doing and instinctively looked toward the source of the sound.

It came from the center of the city.

“That sounds like cannon fire,” Li Ye thought. “It could be a mobile city bombarding some monster stronghold. Or perhaps two mobile cities have gone to war.”

Since he had yet to determine the true situation within the city ruins, he still felt little sense of security.

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“No. I still need to find a way to investigate this city,” he muttered to himself. “If necessary, I can send the convoy out to scout ahead.”

The Tomorrow had currently produced four level-one off-road vehicles.

They were parked in the lower section of the Tomorrow, where a dedicated garage could accommodate twelve off-road vehicles.

The convoy could reach the ground through the lift platform and deploy from there. When no missions were underway, the vehicles remained parked in the garage, where mechanics from the mobile city performed inspections and maintenance.

Thinking of this, Li Ye could not help wincing. Four off-road vehicles had cost the equivalent of one thousand units of iron ore.

But the expense had been necessary.

For a mobile city, a convoy was equivalent to its two hands.

A convoy could scout ahead, gather supplies, or even mount heavy machine guns and rocket launchers during battles between mobile cities and launch assaults against enemy cities.

Li Ye assigned two off-road vehicles to each unit, dividing them into two convoys. Each convoy consisted of two drivers and four combat personnel.

The convoys were currently equipped with Falcon assault rifles and Gale rocket launchers. In addition, Li Ye had manufactured four standard heavy machine guns in the production workshop and installed them on the vehicles.

With that, the convoys possessed fairly respectable combat strength.

While waiting for the intelligence update, Li Ye opened a cup of instant noodles and began eating.

These level-one cup noodles required only 0.2 units of flour to produce. They tasted reasonably good and provided a ten-percent increase to satiety, making them an excellent food source.

When the convoys went out on missions lasting several days, they could be supplied with this food. It was convenient both to eat and to carry.

As he ate, Li Ye opened the system interface. Several hours still remained before the next intelligence update.

Watching the combat personnel patrolling the deck, he suddenly had an idea.

“There’s nothing else to do for now. We might as well hunt some monsters nearby!”

“Hunting monsters” was a common expression among mobile cities.

It referred to sending out convoys and combat personnel to sweep up monsters and their strongholds along the route.

After all, on the wasteland, monsters were a form of resource as well.

Killing them could yield crystal coins, iron ore, coal, and other materials. Some humanoid monsters also dropped cloth.

Mutated monsters such as lava spiders and steel-fanged hyenas dropped special materials, including lava spider silk and hyena steel teeth.

In addition, monsters could drop all kinds of finished goods.

Everything from daily necessities, books, weapons, and tools could be found. There was even a chance of obtaining level-one items.

Of course, what everyone wanted most were blueprints.

Li Ye therefore sent out Convoys One and Two, along with the goblin helicopter piloted by Lin Wu, to hunt monsters.

In fact, quite a few monsters roamed the city ruins.

Boarfolk, goblins, snakefolk, antfolk, gnolls...

Some patrolled in small squads, some gathered around campfires, and others occupied lairs.

They were by no means easy prey. Most carried swords, knives, clubs, or other weapons. Some even wielded firearms or rocket launchers.

Worse still, some had mounted heavy machine guns and cannons within their strongholds.

These monsters knew how to seek cover and avoid bombardment using proper defensive techniques. Some even coordinated their movements tactically.

Li Ye lowered his binoculars and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

He could not understand why the monsters of the wasteland were so frighteningly sophisticated.

The Tomorrow had only recently formed Convoys One and Two and expanded its combat personnel. Li Ye therefore felt it necessary to give them some early combat training.

Over the next few hours, the teams gradually returned with their spoils from hunting monsters.

Crystal coins, iron ore, coal, cloth...

There were also various standard-grade finished goods, such as flashlights, axes, mining picks, and professional books.

Before Li Ye, the supplies gradually piled up into a small mountain.

What surprised him most was that Convoy One had unexpectedly obtained a level-one city construction blueprint after killing an elite captain-rank gnoll.

[Level-One Blueprint: City Simulation Training Pod]

[Item Name: City Simulation Training Pod]

[Item Grade: Level One]

[Additional Effect: Allows personnel entering the pod to undergo various simulated training exercises]

[Construction Requirements: 200 units of level-one iron ore, 50 units of level-one wood, 100 units of level-one copper ore]

“What is this thing?”

Li Ye frowned in confusion.

After carefully reading the blueprint’s description, his eyes widened.

The City Simulation Training Pod could construct corresponding training scenarios, ranging from vehicle operation and mobile-city maintenance to external combat.

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The training scenarios had to be constructed by entering a series of professional books or supplying accurate corresponding data.

If the goal was to train for combat against an enemy, he needed to input the basic data of his own weapons and the target enemy—for example, monsters, enemy land, sea, or air vehicles, or even an enemy mobile city.

The training pod came with a handheld scanner. Scanning the target was all that was needed to input its data.

“So that’s how it works!” Li Ye rubbed his hands together excitedly. “I really struck gold this time!”

With the City Simulation Training Pod, he could train combat personnel, mechanics, helmsmen, gunners, and other specialists.

He could even simulate battles against enemy mobile cities.

The pod could also train cooks, craftsmen, repair workers, and all the other personnel a mobile city required.

The only prerequisite was that he had to input the corresponding professional books or provide precise data.

Li Ye immediately entered the blueprint into the production workshop and spent the necessary resources to construct the City Simulation Training Pod on the middle level.

The City Simulation Training Pod occupied approximately sixty square meters. Its exterior was a square building.

Inside were ten enclosed pods, each equipped with a seat and a neural-link helmet.

When he saw the finished product, Li Ye’s excitement was instantly cut in half.

The city’s construction technology was simply too crude. The training pod looked like a huge square metal box, while the seats, scanner, parameter-setting machine, and neural-link helmets were all rough to the extreme. They looked as though they had been assembled by hand.

“Never mind. Considering how few resources it took to build, what more could you expect?” he consoled himself.

Wanting to give it a try, Li Ye entered the automotive driving manual he had just obtained from hunting monsters into the training pod. He then lay down in the seat and put on the neural-link helmet.

His consciousness immediately entered a perfectly square data space, where a crudely modeled automobile appeared before him.

Li Ye climbed into the vehicle and began performing a series of driving operations.

Although the training pod was extremely rudimentary, it could at least provide genuine training.

“If it can be upgraded to level two, the experience might improve considerably,” he thought.

Over the following period, Li Ye used the scanner to input the data of the Tomorrow’s level-one weapons, heavy machine guns, and Frost Cannon. He also had Convoys One and Two search for the bodies of various monsters and scan them.

He then entered the specific data into the training pod’s screen.

[Number of Trainees: 1]

[Weapon: Falcon Assault Rifle]

[Location: Jungle]

[Enemy Types: Goblins, Gnolls, Boarfolk]

[Number of Enemies: 15]

[Combat Difficulty: Normal]

Once he finished configuring the scenario and put on the neural-link helmet, a scene immediately appeared before him.

Yet whether it was the jungle, the monsters, the weapons, or even Li Ye himself, every model was incredibly crude.

Li Ye tried moving and firing. The tactile feedback was surprisingly decent.

“Forget it. Crude models are crude models. As long as it can train people, that’s good enough. What more could I ask for?”

Over the following period, he had Old Zhou and the others enter the training pod one after another.

Although the experience was rough, everyone was still visibly excited.

They deliberately increased the number of monsters and raised the difficulty, creating combat scenarios set in swamps, wilderness, cities, and other environments.

Li Ye fell into thought.

It seemed that if he wanted to train more talented personnel, he needed to collect as many professional books as possible.

Books on vehicle operation, mechanical maintenance, cooking, first aid, cleaning, and other subjects would all be useful.

If used properly, the training pod could provide the Tomorrow with a steady stream of skilled personnel.

Once they upgraded to a higher-level training pod and collected a complete range of professional books, they might even be able to train pilots, submarine operators, and other specialists.

According to Li Ye’s plans, the City Simulation Training Pod’s resources would currently be prioritized for the following projects:

First, simulating wilderness combat for the combat personnel.

Second, routine maintenance and upkeep of the mobile city.

Third, off-road vehicle operation, firearm marksmanship, cannon operation, and heavy machine-gun operation.

As for constructing the corresponding training scenarios and designing the various training programs, he would leave that to Lin Wu.

With the training pod, the overall quality of the Tomorrow’s personnel would improve considerably.

After arranging everything, Li Ye opened the system panel.

The new intelligence had now been refreshed.

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